Thoughts about Royals

Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia

Today marks the 80th Death Anniversary of Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia, who died on this day in 1928. Born in 1847 as the second daughter of King Christian IX of Denmark and Princess Louise of Hesse-Kassel, her siblings included King Frederick VIII of Denmark and King George I of Greece, and Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom, Empress of India. In 1864, she got engaged to Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich of Russia, who died the following year, and married his younger brother in 1866. The couple had six children, including the last Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. In 1881, her father-in-law, Tsar Alexander II was assassinated, and her husband succeeded to the Throne as Tsar Alexander III, reigning until his death in 1894. Empress Maria Feodorovna was a glittering society hostess, in contrast with her daughter-in-law and successor, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, and also maintained great relations with her Danish family and extended siblings throughout Europe, especially Queen Alexandra. After the Russian Revolution, the Dowager Empress resided in her Palace in the Crimea, eventually leaving on a British destroyer sent by her nephew, King George V, in 1919. She refused to believe that her son and his family had been assassinated, and spent the rest of her life mainly at Hvidøre House in Denmark, where she died on this day in 1928. The Dowager Empress was initially buried at Roskilde Cathedral, before being reinterred next to Tsar Alexander III at the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St Petersburg in 2006.